Analysis of Iowa's policies

Candidates to ITILP are not required to pass a subject-matter test prior to
admission to the program; however, candidates must pass a subject-matter
test prior to licensure. ITILP candidates must pass a basic skills test
and the "Star Teacher Pre-screener" assessment. The state will accept
equivalent scores on the GRE in lieu of the basic skills requirement. Neither a
major nor specific coursework is required; as a result there is no need for a
test-out option.

Applicants must also possess a minimum of three years' successful work
experience and participate in an interview process.

Recommendations for Iowa

Increase academic requirements for admission.

While a minimum GPA requirement is a first step toward ensuring that candidates are of good academic standing, the current standard of 2.5 does not serve as a sufficient indicator of past academic performance. Some accommodation in this standard may be appropriate for career changers. At a minimum, Iowa should set a standard for academic proficiency higher than for traditional candidates. A rigorous test appropriate for candidates who have already completed a bachelor's degree, such as the GRE, would be ideal.Require applicants to pass a
subject-matter test for admission.
The concept behind alternate routes is that the
nontraditional candidate is able to concentrate on acquiring professional
knowledge and skills because he or she has strong subject-area knowledge.
Teachers without sufficient subject-matter knowledge place students at risk.

Eliminate basic skills test
requirement.

Iowa's requirement that alternate route candidates pass a
basic skills test is impractical and ineffectual, although Iowa is recognized
for allowing candidates to use equivalent scores to fulfill this admission
criterion. Basic skills tests measure minimum competency—essentially those
skills that a person should have acquired in middle school—and are inappropriate
for candidates who have already earned a bachelor's degree.
A test designed for
individuals who already have a bachelor's degree, such as the GRE, would be a
much more appropriate measure of academic standing. At a minimum, the state
should eliminate the basic skills test requirement or accept the equivalent in
SAT or ACT scores.

Consider flexibility in
work-experience requirement.

Iowa should consider using a candidate's years of experience
as a factor in the admission process rather than as a requirement. Requiring a
minimum number of years of work experience may disqualify potentially talented
candidates unnecessarily. Recent graduates, who may demonstrate high academic
ability and strong content knowledge but lack the minimum years of experience,
would be needlessly excluded from the alternate route programs under this
requirement.

Pensions

How we graded

Research rationale

The intent of alternate route programs is to provide a route
for those who already have strong subject-matter knowledge to enter the
profession, allowing them to focus on gaining the professional skills needed
for the classroom. This intent is based on the fact that academic caliber has
been shown to be a strong predictor of classroom success. Programs that admit
candidates with a weak grasp of both subject matter and professional knowledge
can put the new teacher in an impossible position, where he or she is much more
likely to experience failure and perpetuate high attrition rates.

Academic requirements
for admission to alternate routes should exceed the requirements for
traditional programs.

Assessing a teacher candidate's college GPA and/or aptitude
scores can provide useful and reliable measures of academic caliber, provided
that the state does not set the floor too low. A 2.5 minimum GPA is the common
choice of many alternate route programs but aims too low. As discussed in Goal 1-A, states should
limited teacher preparation to the top half of the college bound (or in the
case of alternate routes college graduate) population. GPA measures may be especially
useful for assessing elementary teacher qualifications, since elementary
teaching demands a broader body of knowledge that can be harder to define in
terms of specific tests or coursework.

Rigid coursework requirements can dissuade talented,
qualified individuals who lack precisely the "right" courses from
pursuing a career in teaching. States can maintain high standards by using
appropriate tests to allow individuals to prove their subject-matter knowledge.
For instance, an engineer who wishes to teach physics should face no coursework
obstacles as long as he or she can prove sufficient knowledge of physics on a
test. A good test with a sufficiently high passing score is certainly as
reliable as courses listed on a transcript, if not more so.

A testing exemption would also allow alternate routes to
recruit college graduates with strong liberal arts backgrounds to work as
elementary teachers, even if their transcripts fail to meet state requirements.

This
research is supported by other research showing that teachers from more
selective colleges are more effective at raising student achievement. See for
example, B. White, J. Presley, and K. DeAngelis, 2008, "Leveling Up: Narrowing the Teacher Academic Capital Gap in Illinois", Illinois Education Research Council, Policy Research Report: IERC 2008-1, 44 p.; A. Summers and B. Wolfe, "Do Schools Make a Difference?", American Economic Review, Volume 67, No. 4, September 1977, pp. 639-652.

More
evidence is provided by research done on National Board certified teachers. In
fact, one study finds that the only measure that distinguishes them from their
non-certified peers was their higher scores on the SAT and ACT. See D.
Goldhaber, D. Perry, and E. Anthony, NBPTS certification: Who applies
and what factors are associated with success? Urban Institute, May 2003;
available at: http://www.urban.org/UploadedPDF/410656_NBPTSCertification.pdf.